The moment I opened the book, a wave of knowledge invaded my mind. It was incomprehensible, none of the details making sense. Still, the knowledge was ingrained in me, and I somehow learnt how to cast Scan without understanding how it worked.

Taking a last look at the blank pages of the book, I shut it and placed it back into my bag. I then took out the last berry and consumed it, ranking up to Rank 3 as my the size of my core increased. Why so uneventful? Well, repeating about the intensity of the berry over and over would be a pain, and my physique was now strong enough to mostly ignore the adverse effects anyway.

Having healed up and raring to go, I trod out of the cave and decided to search for civilisation. I did get attacked by a random mage, but that was just a bandit, right? The cities would surely be safer!

As I walked randomly, I stumbled across the slumbering form of Rocky. If only the golem could still protect me! I suppose that was rather selfish, but a man can wish, you know?

I suddenly got an odd idea as I stared at Rocky. Couldn't I try the scan spell on it to see how its insides were like? I itched to try my new spell, and Rocky was a perfect target!

Scan!

I used the spell on Rocky, and a surge of information hit me. It was as if I could see through every part of Rocky at the same time, the texture of the metal, the rock and the insides of its core! The core of the golem had thousands of veins and pores, and a huge hollow chamber in the center of the core.

Mere mortals weren't equipped with the capacity to handle so much information at once. But oddly enough, I felt as if something was temporarily giving me a boost, allowing me to comprehend the incomprehensible. I assumed it must be one of the benefits that the book granted when the knowledge surged into me.

Wait, veins and pores?

I took a brief look, marvelling at the intricate way the thousands of veins and pores were formed, with streams of mana from the air efficiently being absorbed by the core.

Then intense pain hit me hard.

I kneeled to the ground, collapsing as I wheezed, feeling as if a huge boulder was dropped on me all of a sudden. I was confused for a second, then realised, mana exhaustion! Damn, it was almost like pain was constantly forced on me lately!

I scanned my core in panic, only to find I had dropped back to Rank 2, my core still the same size as before, but hollow on the inside and heavily cracked now. Fuck! Why couldn't things go right for once? I could feel dense amounts of neutral active mana and a little of my unique mana in the air, evidently the result of my overdrafting.

This was terrible, why did the spell have to take up so much mana? Trying to calm myself down, I started to absorb the mana in the air, hoping to at least regain some of the unique mana. Then something completely unexpected happened, my core being able to attract the neutral mana as well!

This was ridiculous, the textbooks back at Lumious clearly stated that neutral mana, a byproduct of casting spells could not be absorbed by humans due to elemental incompatibility! I assumed the fact that I could absorb neutral mana had to do with my unique element.

Well, perhaps my mana type wasn't so bad after all. Having the skill to recollect lost mana after casting a spell is pretty powerful!

Not only that, I was absorbing the mana at ridiculous speeds. I realised the mana seeped through the cracks, making me absorb the mana at incredible speed, much like how the golem did though the pores on it's core. However what happened next stifled my excitement, the mana seeping out of the cracks yet again.

I thought of sealing the cracks after absorbing a portion of the mana, but I got an absurd idea all of a sudden. Could I form the insides of my now hollow core to be a duplicate of Rocky's? An insane idea, but I didn't have anything to lose!

I could still recall the complex diagram of Rocky's core, so I solidified mana to form veins and a chamber.

After intense focus and reshaping, I didn't manage to form an exact duplicate of the golems core, only creating a vague duplicate, my control of mana not good enough. I managed to patch up the large cracks, replacing them with a hundred tiny pores attached to small veins. The veins led to a chamber in the center of my core, to stop the mana from leaking out after I absorbed it.

By the time I finished shaping my core, most my wasted mana had dissipated, a true pity. However, if I could truly improve my talent through this method, it would all be worth it! Apprehension draped me, and I hoped that life would give me a chance and not fuck things up.

I took out the grey crystal, prepared to test out my new cultivation speed.